James Rielly

JAMES RIELLY (Wales, 1956).
"Birthday."
Watercolor on paper.
Without signature.
Measurements: 38 x 29 cm; 48 x 38 cm (frame).

This work combines a delicate and atmospheric execution with a subtle conceptual charge, characteristic of James Rielly's poetic universe, where childhood and introspection acquire a disturbing and contemplative dimension.

The soft palette and the almost ethereal treatment of color reinforce the sense of fragility and silence, while the motif of the candles introduces an open reading between celebration, passage of time and memory.

James Rielly developed a strongly expressive figurative painting, characterized by formal simplification and bold use of color. Linked to the contemporary British scene, his work explores identity, human relationships and introspection through anonymous figures that acquire a universal character.

Rielly has shown his paintings in a number of solo exhibitions since 1983, including the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts, Nantes, France, Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York, Fond Regional d'Art Contemporain Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, Centro de Arte de Salamanca (CASA), Salamanca, Spain, Centre d'Art Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and Scott White Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA, among many others. In 1995 he was awarded a MOMART fellowship at Tate Gallery and in 1997 he was shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize. He has been a professor of painting at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France since 2006.